History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

256
MIGRATION TO UTAH.
weeks to build ferry-boats and recruit their animals.
Grass was now plentiful; most of the brethren depended
upon their rifles for food, and after having
prepared sufficient dried meat for the rest of the journey,
they continued on their way.
No sooner had they crossed the river than a horseman,
who had followed their trail from Laramie, rode
up and begged them to halt, as near by was a large
company bound for Oregon, for which he asked conveyance
over the stream. The pioneers consented,
stipulating that they should receive payment in provisions.
Other parties following, the larder of the
saints was replenished. 8
Travelling rapidly, and a little to the south of what
was known as the Oregon track, 9 the Mormons arrived
at South Pass in the latter part of June, about
the time when the tide of emigration usually passed
the Missouri. Thence skirting the Colorado desert
and reaching the Green River country, the monotony
was broken. Here the brethren were met by Elder
Brannan, who had sailed from New York for California
in the ship Brooklyn, the previous February, with
238 saints, as before mentioned. He reported that
they were all busy making farms and raising grain on
the San Joaquin River. 10 As several of the present
We paid him $15 for the use of his ferry-boat. Mr Bordeaux said that this
was the most civil and best-behaved company that had ever passed the fort.
7d.,MS., 1S47.91.
8 Snow, in Utah Pioneers, 44. ' Capt. Groverand eight others of the pioneers
were left at North Platte ferry and ford to ferry the companies that
should arrive, and especially to ferry the emigration from Winter Quarters.'
Hist. B. Young, MS., 1847.
9 ' Making a new road for a majority of more than one thousand miles
westward, they arrived at the great basin in the latter part of July. '
' Epistle of the Twelve, in Millennial Star, x. 82. He [Brigham] and the company
arrived on the 24th of July, having sought out and made a new road
650 miles, and followed a trapper's trail nearly 400 miles. Smith's Rise, Progress,
and Travels, 16; see also Tullidge's Life of Young, 161. Remysays that
an odometer was attached to a wheel of one of the wagons, and careful notes
taken of the distances. Jour, to O. S. L. City, i. 433-4. 'As I remember,
there was no trail after leaving Laramie, going over the Black Hills, except
very rarely. For a short distance before reaching the Sweetwater, we saw a
wagon track; it was a great surprise and a great curiosity.' Hist. B. Young,
MS., 1848, 7.
10
Hist. B. Young, MS., 1847, 95; Tullidge's Life of Young, 166.
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General